I've decided to put up a thread with just art by me for looking and critiquing. I've noted a few places around, that, when I post my art, I get suggestions and praise. Being who I am, I have a rather deflated self image (mostly ingrained in me by countless poundings from public school chums to a point that I became so depressed I started failing), I feel an intense need to have myself validated in some way.

I'm not specifically looking for people to go, "hey, cool, check that out," "that's really good," or "awesome." I'm actually looking for people to go, "hey, try this," or "if you did so-and-so, it might look better," or even "you should work on ____ a little more." I'm also looking for "have you ever tried drawing ____," or "could you draw a _____?"

I guess what I'm saying is that this is sort a comment/showcase thread for me, so I don't have to have multiple threads for my art. I'll post a little comment about each piece as they go up, something about the technique, the way I drew it, how I feel about it, and the subject of the piece.

All right, this first one is relatively simple. A friend asked me to show him how the classic "less is more" female spellcasting character could be made to look virtuous. This was an interesting challenge, and I really enjoyed it.

I decided the main outfit shouldn't be white, as that has become a rather overdone color with this type of character and in fact achieves the opposite effect of what I was trying to do. I also closed her legs in a walking gait and put a more gentle curve to the hair and eyebrows.

There are some problems with the face and the inking, but a good coloring job can cover those up. This was when I first started experimenting with metals and shiny objects in a different fashion than I had before. I used to just run a white shine along the edges of a shaded image, but here I over shaded and then recolored the base with a darker color. I like the way it turned out.

I also really like the way her hair came out, and I like the mousy brown color it ended up being. I'll have to use it again somewhere.

I'm not an anime aficionado so I can't really comment on the style, but I think you achieved your goal of making her more virtuous. Of course, adding more clothes would be the most effective route , but aside from that, the stance and hair do make her seem a little less risque than a lot of these types of characters.

Interesting. Anime style actually comes in several different types. It's the way I draw because it's the way I learned to draw people. As for creatures, well, I'm still working on that.

For example, below is a sampling of three Rev heads in three styles. The top is a more realistic style, and the lower two are differing types of anime-like styles (at least they were when I started). The one on the left is a preliminary sketch for how I maight draw him in a comic. His face is a little thin and his trademark smoke isn't there, but it's fundamentally him. The one on the right is a little more comical, being more expressive than it should be (though it didn't turn out how I planned). Ah, well. This is a bad example.

I like how Rev turned out in the top image, though. It looks nice. I might even do a whole body like that. Haven't drawn dinos with that style in a long time........

Next up: I'll show you the three types of anime styles, mangling Belle and Melinda's character designs as I do!

I mean fool around at 2 in the morning. I know there were several filters and around 25 or so layers involved, as well as lots of wet edged paintbrush tool and a picture of the moon.

The day after I did this, a friend pointed me to this filter online that does almost this exact same thing and doesn't take as much time. I nearly kicked myself several times.

Ah, well.......

Oh, here's those manglings I promised.

We have Belle's head (her body isn't important for this example, as it doesn't change much for the anime types) in three styles. On the far right is abbreviated realism. You most often see this style in horror or suspense manga, ones with little science fiction or fantasy element. I've only seen a few anime that use this style.

Next is partial surrealism. This is the style most common in anime and manga. You see this style in anime like Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, and Serial Experiments: Lain (have I told anyone to watch that series today? No? Then someone watch it).

Last, on the far left, is supreme deformation or extreme surrealism. You see this in its totality in children's anime and farcical comedy, such as the farcical swashbuckling series 'One Piece' and less prominent (though famous) titles such as Pokémon, Digimon, and Monster Rancher (are we sensing a theme?).

Note that within each of these three types are stylistic subsets. For example, the artwork in Lupin III is much different than the character designs from One Piece, but both use similar levels of realism in the designs. In some cases, several styles appear in the same anime. Tenchi Muyo contains both partial and extreme surrealism, reserving the extreme surrealism for the child characters. Another good anime that shows this type of example is Betterman, which has just reached stateside and is now showing on Tech TV.

On the bottom is a broad realist depiction of Belle's head that I did on a whim. It seems older to me. More experienced. Less likely to tie giant bird feathers and beads in her hair.

This is something I was doing a while ago and never finished. It was for a planet/colonization type game I was going to run but never did. It's a scene from Canaan, a planet that seems like a paradise at first glance....warm, shallow seas, little cloud cover, few storms, light rains, sun, and lots of beaches and pristine islands.

Of course, there are giants on land and sea, and some very territorial predators. Oh, and there's that other problem, the one buried beneath the surface long ago......

The creature reminds me of the ones in that book whose name I can't remember... doggonit... there was a book of alien creatures written by some sci-fi artist. My cousin had it. I can't remember the name, but his creatures were similar to yours.

You know, there's a town in Connecticut called New Canaan. Coincidence? Hmm...

This is probably what will become the illustration for the Magus Advanced class, once it gets finished. I'm writing it several ways now, and I'm not sure how I want it to go. It's real hard to get folks' opinion on the matter, as well.

Alright, I didn't shade or color the avatar that's flying around because it looks a bit more surreal that way. For some foolish reason, I didn't properly size her feet. Also, the stuf she's walking on doesn't look right. I'll have to fix that later.

That one really grabs me. First, the fact that you managed to make a bat-girl look cute. That's something. And the "Kshatrya Chic" is really intriguing, somehow -- meshing a warrior caste with a fashion statement is just cool. What setting is this for?

Alrighty, I have the dirty copy finished. This is what it looks like before shaidng and background is done. This is what the colors might end up being, but I'm still unsure about her shirt. If anybody has any ideas of what color to make that shirt, I've got no problem listening.

This is also the first time I'm using this particular technique to color the background. Some wet edged paintbrush tool is what I'll be using.

The dasho are from Sacred Ground, but this is a more modern look at a Dasho. Most of them wouldn't be caught dead wearing something this "civilized." I suppose I could put it in the back of "Soul of the Bat" with the section on putting Dasho in non-Sacred Ground settings.

This is sketch art for a request. A buddy wanted me to draw a pic for a pair of his prestige classes...the Grayport Surgeon and Plague Master. Neither class could be found, and he never got back to me with them, but I drew the pictures and sent 'em both anyway. I may write up my own ideas for these classes.

This is the second sketch, and I may redraw this picture yet again. I wanted to show off the corrupting nature of the Plague Master...or at least, the corrupting aspect it was supposed to have, and I redrew it to show that a little more clearly.

This is Hood. She's a character I draw a lot, and continually draw tons of variations of. This is Manapunk Hood from Crystal Legacy. There's supposed to be a Velociraptor behind her (turkey-sized, of course), but I cut it out due to time constraints and the fact I couldn't come up with a color scheme I liked.

I really like the way this'n turned out. I've been doing that a lot lately, but the jean texture came out good and the shirt looks great. The only problme here is the Manacast (her gun) is a bit lopsided, but that's mostly because I can't draw machinery worth crap.

You know, the first thing I noticed when I saw this (even before I read the post) was the scratchy quality to the lines. I thought, "Wow, that's cool... makes it a little rougher and more dangerous." I like that look. It didn't even occur to me that it was unfinished; I thought it was intentional.

The tube is filled with green hydraulic fliud that intermittenly sprays out of the right side vents as steam. There's tubes and rivets all over the place.....I dunno what I was thinkin', but it's still pretty cool.

Darn...this means I have to write some sort of backstory, and that means I have to create a world.

You think her legs are too short? I think they're too long... or else her arms are too short. When hanging by my sides, my arms stretch to one hand-length from the top of my knee... hers seem a bit further than that. Then again, maybe it's just anime style to have long legs?

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